Manama: A Qatari court has sentenced two persons to death after they were found guilty of smuggling huge quantities of narcotics into the country.
The duo was part of a gang of six, all Arab and GCC nationals, who were caught smuggling the contraband into the country through the Doha Port. The consignment was concealed in huge coffee grinders that were being imported, Qatari daily The Peninsula reported on Wednesday.
The other four defendants were convicted and sentenced to 20 years in jail and fined QR400,000 (Dh403,438) each. They will be deported after serving the jail term, the court said.
According to the case papers, the six were convicted of bringing into the country 720kg of drugs and more than four million narcotic tablets.
An official from the Anti-Drug Enforcement Directorate deposing as a key witness told the court that his department got a tip-off from sources about the smuggling bid.
Two of the convicts were seen in the an industrial area in Doha, loading refrigerators on two vans that were heading to the Madinat Khalifa area.
The police followed them and later asked them about the refrigerators. During the interrogation they admitted that they had concealed drugs inside the refrigerators and had another consignment of drugs stored in a rented car driven by one of their accomplices.
The duo led the police to a warehouse in the industrial area where they had hidden the consignment inside four big coffee grinders which were imported from an Arab country.
They admitted that they intended to sell the smuggled drugs in Qatar and the neighbouring countries.
The daily did not mention the age of the smugglers.
